“THE SADDEST THING IS TO WATCH A MAN WHO IS LOSING ABSOLUTE POWER”: Ranko Pivljanin on Vučić and a possible new term!

Rarely does anything look as sad and pathetic as a man losing power, and the saddest thing is watching a man whose absolute power is slipping away, regardless of the fact that there is a real possibility that he may retain it, and that man is Aleksandar Vučić at this moment. That, to some extent, can be a consolation in the sense that a new term, even if only temporarily, prolongs freedom for him and his associates and allows them to extend their lucrative five minutes in power for another second and take another hundred million or billion euros, but a heavy shadow looms over that seemingly happy outcome.

Although confused and panicked, he is sufficiently aware that he will never again, in any format — unless he turns a country on European soil into North Korea — be in a position or have the ability to consume the cursed power, his greatest and only obsession, in the way he has done over the past 14 years. And this realization makes him fragile, angry, frustrated, desperate and, ultimately, powerless to step away from the slippery terrain of his own delusions and illusions and see his position for what it really is, outside the simulacrum and bubble into which, with the help of unprecedented propaganda, he placed himself, and then limited himself with the lies and manipulations that he eventually began to believe himself. This is the final step before the ultimate collapse, the breaking point and the moment of truth when everything around you inevitably begins to crumble: power, force, loyalty, false applause, frames of airbrushed images and party infrastructure. And finally, the entire architecture of the monstrous organization that was formally called the government and regime, but was in reality nothing more than a mafia structure established with enormous budgetary funds and even greater loans, held together exclusively by particular selfish interests.

Although he is trying to project opponents onto the other side and use confrontation with them to regain some footing and gain some kind of advantage, he also knows that his true enemies are neither the students nor the opposition nor the media nor the public, but precisely the octopus he created himself, whose tentacles are wrapping around his neck. They are trying to keep him in political life for one single reason — to save themselves. Not because they trust him; he does not trust them either! Not because they are heirs to his ideology, because there was no such ideology in either him or them! Least of all because they believe that this support is right, but because they are using their last opportunity to survive and remain free with their stolen money, and the only way that can happen is for their “capo di tutti” to survive politically in these snap elections.

I firmly maintain that none of them wanted these elections and that, in secret, they cursed and swore at him, sparing no harsh words, because they are acutely aware of the risks, and things could, after all, have continued this way for more than another year. By calling the elections, he put their own skins and backsides at risk as well, and that is why they are the ones holding a “gun to his head,” simultaneously encouraging and threatening him that he must not lose this contest. And this sad tale’s protagonist has accumulated enough such people that he can now only look on in horror and fear at their bared jaws shouting “Aco, Serb!” while, in reality, foaming with rage, with evil eyes simultaneously spewing greed and fear. He fears them, he owes them, just as they owe him, except that debts of this kind are not settled through rescheduling or write-offs; when they come due, heads roll. A “joint venture” between government and crime never ends or breaks up peacefully or by agreement, because when one of those two sides — whether forced by circumstances or through a miscalculation and decision — decides to throw the other under the bus, the skeletons they share begin falling out of the closet, the mafia law of omertà ceases to apply, abysses of hatred and mutual accusations open up, and with them comes the inevitable descent into betrayal.

That is Vučić’s greatest nightmare. Although he has equated remaining in power with life itself, he would not have a problem leaving office if someone guaranteed him security, freedom and refuge. However, those guarantees do not exist, and his only choice is to win the election. Yet even if he wins them, and the result shows weakening and a downward trajectory, he is aware of the possible avalanche of “clients” from his governing pyramid who will begin thinking about life after Vučić. And when hyenas “smell blood,” they throw themselves at their prey with all their might and ruthlessness to satisfy their hunger.

The more he is forced during the campaign to use his own political brand, his state office, budgetary money and the constant mobilization of party members to maintain control, or the illusion of control, the more he unwillingly demonstrates that elections are no longer, nor can they be, what they have been until now — a routine confirmation of power and authority. They open up a vast field of terrible uncertainty and an outcome that is no longer predictable and cannot be controlled. Vučić is not afraid of the score on the scoreboard; he is trembling at the realization that at that moment his people from the OKG, abused voters, and then the wider public will see for the first time that something is wrong. As much as he fears defeat, he also fears losing the perception of his invincibility. Although he tries to send a message of stability and victory, he has long been uncertain about both victory and his own story of invincibility. He has been wounded and is bleeding in that “Škoda” and at the “people’s celebrations” tents, encouraging both himself and his supporters, increasingly unconvincingly and increasingly quietly. The man who for years had confidently appeared before the people as though he were not going to an election but to receive a trophy he had already won in advance is now, broken and insecure, traveling around Serbia, putting up new tents, boasting about billions and economic successes, exploiting the army, invoking robots, ingratiating himself with pensioners, and frightening other citizens with a potential Armageddon if he is no longer there. Instead of selling a program, he is selling fear of what supposedly comes after him. Instead of defeating political opponents with arguments, he is trying to portray them as evil, enemies, parasites and traitors, echoed by criminal media agencies whose representatives, besides primitively and unscrupulously smearing people on the other side, also commit numerous criminal offenses every day.

To conclude. His greatest fear is that his own people will begin to doubt him. Not those who “hate” him — they have long since been factored in — but those who support him only because they think he will win again this time, and they will know how to cash in on that. Such people do not merely love power; they love the winner to whose insignia they can attach the tubes of their own IV drips. Once they see that their favorite is no longer a certain winner, their beastly psychology begins to change rapidly. Just as yesterday they chased after him, held onto his coat-tails and shouted “Aco, Serb!”, they now begin calculating how much, and whether at all, it pays to remain tied to a “political corpse.” That is where panic and anxiety begin. The regime that until yesterday produced an image of omnipotence and invincibility suddenly has to explain why, if it is so omnipotent, it needs so much noise and commotion to prove it. And that is why Vučić during the campaign no longer resembles a man who is casually and confidently heading toward an unquestionable victory, but rather a loser trying to escape the moment when he will face the painful truth that victory is no longer, nor will it ever again be, something that belongs to him in advance. And once the fear of the invincible is lost, invincibility ceases to exist.